To accelerate its global growth, Bridgepoint has acquired a majority stake in Inspired Thinking Group (Team ITG) from Equistone Partners Europe (Equistone), the previous shareholder, for an undisclosed sum. The current Bridgepoint management team will deliver the next phase of Team ITG’s international development through this acquisition. It focuses on U.S growth in marketing services and cloud-based marketing technology.
Team ITG is headquartered in Birmingham, UK, and has over 1,000 employees across Europe and America. It is changing the way global brands operate their marketing. It was founded in 2009 and has become the ‘go-to’ solution for several major corporations like GSK, Jaguar Land Rover, Heineken, Currys, and PUMA.
Team ITG is a multi-channel marketing activation business. Its martech platform CanopyCloud is supported by its 24-hour creative production and client services like creative production, strategy, performance marketing, photography, and film. This blend of technology allows Team ITG to deploy solutions for all kinds of client needs swiftly. They offer fast, agile marketing partnerships that deliver excellent results across all channels.
Simon Ward, CEO of Team ITG, commented: "Our success has been built on revolutionising the way marketers work, liberating them from tedious administrative tasks through our integrated ecosystem of game-changing technology and world-class creative services. Designed by marketers for marketers, our martech platform is highly innovative, refreshingly intuitive, and extremely powerful. GSK, one of our many global clients, recently described our CanopyCloud platform as 'the future and heart of their content operations.'
"We would like to thank Equistone for its fantastic support in developing our business over the past four years. And now, our relationship with Bridgepoint is another brilliant milestone in our journey as we grow globally. We have the team and the resources to deliver even more powerful results for our clients across the world while also developing a host of exciting new partnerships."
"Team ITG is a successful marketing operations services business with a compelling software offering, CanopyCloud. It operates in a very large, growing and fragmented market that benefits from the increasing need for automation driven by the shift to digital and personalised marketing. We're excited to be backing the team at a crucial time as they scale their technology offering and become increasingly global – areas where we can provide the necessary expertise to accompany them on this next stage in their journey."
Emma Watford, partner and co-head of Bridgepoint's investment activities in the UK
Paul Harper, Partner at Equistone, said: "We are proud to have partnered with Simon and the team during this exceptional phase of the company's development, comprising strong organic and acquisitive growth. We are also delighted to be reinvesting in Team ITG as a minority shareholder and look forward to continuing to support the business's ambitious global growth strategy."